1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to communication systems and, in particular, to an improved cordless telephone system.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications (DECT) standard, promulgated by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), is an accepted standard for cordless telephones. DECT is based on a micro-cellular radio communication system using Time Division Multiple Access and Time Division Duplexing.
The Worldwide Digital Cordless Telecommunications (WDCT) system has been developed by Siemens Wireless Terminals as an FCC-compliant modification of DECT. WDCT is a frequency hopping spread spectrum system employing adaptive differential pulse code modulation (ADPCM).
The voice quality in a frequency hopping spread spectrum system depends largely on the number of interfered carriers. When a TDMA frame structure is used and a carrier is interfered with by a strong interferer, the probability that bit errors will occur, or a whole slot will be lost, is very high.
According to FCC part 15, a system must use in a random order at least n carriers. For a 2.4 GHz system, n=75. The number z of available carriers depends on system design. In addition, FCC part 15 requires that each carrier must not be used longer than x milliseconds every y seconds. For a 2.4 GHz system, x=400 ms, and y=30 seconds.
WDCT is based on a TDMA frame structure with a frame length of 10 milliseconds. Because of the TDMA structure, the frame is divided in receive and transmit slots. An exemplary WDCT frame is shown in FIG. 1. Shown are a plurality of receive slots RX1-RX4 and a plurality of transmit slots TX1-TX4. Each active transmit or receive slot has a duration of 833 microseconds. If there are fewer than four connections, i.e., fewer than four pairs of slots are active, no data is transmitted during the inactive slots. Further, between two active slots an inactive slot of duration 417 microseconds is implemented.
According to a typical implementation of WDCT, the hop algorithm that generates the frequencies in a random order assumes that if one connection is active (i.e., one transmit and one receive slot are used), a frequency will be occupied for one frame length (10 ms). In such implementations, each carrier can be used only 40 times in a 30 second timeframe (400 ms/10 ms=40).